CULTURE AND INDUSTRY

Catalog description

Apple is currently the most valuable company/brand in the world. Despite its technological origin, the company has always valued design, interface, affect, imagination and creativity - skills that the humanities and the interpretive social sciences offer and promote. This course examines how cultural studies, in its analyses of fandom, reception theory, cultural hegemony, etc., provide students the theoretical skills to understand, analyze and prepare for working in the emerging creative industries in China today. Some topics we will explore in the course include: cultural industry and modernity, popular culture and everyday life, representations of gender and sexuality in advertisement, the impact of new social media and information technology, and censorship. 001293